Where the Wild Things Run
by Cassop
Summary: She appeared amused that he felt this careless disposal of reality was irreverent, but perhaps this wasn't unusual for her. Response to Reptilia28's challenge. Recipe for fulfilling fate: Add a dash of maturity, and swirl. HHr
1. A Kiss for our Hero

**Disclaimer:** This is a response to Reptilia28's challenge. Please see my profile for the full details! I have also posted any links I've stumbled across to others who have taken up the gauntlet. The world of Harry Potter isn't mine. Book 7 would never have happened otherwise. ;)

**Warning:** This will not be a story about an omniscient, omnipotent super-rich character. They're boring. Harry will be a flawed, very human young man. He is also not in love with Hermione Granger at this point.

Being told your soul mate's name doesn't induce love. Hermione has a crush on Ron at this point, and Harry likes Ginny.

They're going to do it the old-fashioned way – i.e. falling in love without sudden love potions being removed (thus allowing them to see the one they've always adored), and no soul bond that happens when he touches her hair. :) Sarcasm aside, love is often about the quiet tender things that happen almost without you noticing, rather than grand flashy statements.

* * *

><p><span><em>Chapter One<em>

Spidery, pale fingers cradled the ring of Keys gently, unhitching one that looked as though it was made of glass. The woman before him placed it silently on the desk, and settled back. A moment later she gestured to it.

"Do you know why it's made of glass?" Her voice was silky, soft, and _dangerous_. Harry shuddered slightly at a voice that was a mirror of Severus Snape's. She seemed to physically radiate fury in that special way the professor had, as well. The mature woman on the other side of the desk was angry, and she was barely keeping it under control.

"N-no." He swallowed. "No, I don't."

"Allow me to tell you, Mr Potter. Brass -" and here she jingled the rest of the Keys, allowing them to make a pleasant bell-like sound, "is expensive. A Key, whether your client is to go Beyond, or Back, can only be used once. We have had to forge you six Keys in the past five years, Mr Potter." Hooded eyes surveyed him, sparking with irritation. "Six. It's unheard of. Hephaestus vowed on your fifth visit that he would never make you another, but has since deigned to provide a glass Key for you. I am currently in disgrace for a client who seems to be not only ungrateful for new Chances, but determined to thwart Destiny."

"What do you mean?" Harry was not unintelligent, but her quiet, angry speech was going right over his head. "Have I – I'm not – I haven't died before, have I? I don't remember it." He glanced helplessly around the room with its heavy, grey furniture. "I'm sure I'd remember this..."

"Please credit me with some discretion, Mr Potter. Your visits here are erased from your memory when you return to the physical realm." The woman was beginning to remind him of an ageless Minerva McGonagall, although he had yet to see his Professor adopt the thick heavy braids that hung down the woman's back. Her face was lined, her eyes were sharp, and she was paler than Snape.

"Professor Snape, Mr Potter." Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She even sounded like the woman. Her ability to voice his thoughts (and correct them) did not surprise him. He wondered briefly if anything held the capacity to surprise him at this particular moment.

"How did I die, those other times?" he asked, shifting to look at her.

"Your predictability never ceases to astonish me," the woman said wryly, reaching for a book that she'd obviously placed close to hand in preparation. She thumbed to the first page, and turned it around so that he could read the entry. He blinked.

It was in his own handwriting! The words scrolled across the page.

_I will not fight mountain trolls._

_I will not fight mountain trolls._

Again and again the phrase had been written, spanning the next few pages.

"Perhaps too brief, but I was hoping its pithiness would embed itself in your brain." She sniffed. He turned another leaf over, and blinked at the new phrase.

_I will never again engage a parastic soul clutching to the back of an inadequate professor's head without sufficient knowledge or battle techniques._

"After the first time you tried to battle him, you walked back into the Chamber and ignored all of my advice. This was written fifteen minutes later, when you were killed by Riddle's puppet again. I decided that perhaps detailing what you weren't to do would help." Her voice was distinctly bitter.

He thumbed to the next entry.

_I will not splinch myself, nor try to transfer my idiot self through time and space without proper preparation._

"You were in a hurry to get away from your cousin. You escaped from Harry Hunting, only to join me here." An accidental apparition that had led to lethal splinching? Harry's hands ached in sympathy with his younger self. The words had been written at least five hundred times. He closed it, stunned.

"You made me write lines!" Harry said, somewhat incredulously. His gaze flickered to the woman's face, which seemed tight.

"Indeed. I had hoped that writing them would embed these gems of advice into your subconsious, but it seems that the infamous Gryffindor foolhardiness has ingrained itself into every fibre of your being." He eyed her suspiciously. She seemed to be a mixture of Snape and McGonagall, he decided. The former's vocabulary, with his special brand of bitter disapproval, and McGonagall's dry humour and sharpness.

"Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall, Mr Potter-"

"Stop doing that!" Harry took a deep breath. And then another. "What happens next, then?"

"You will go back to fulfil your Destiny, of course." She sounded matter-of-fact, as though supremely unaware of how successful _that_ had been in the past.

"Which is?" he asked flatly.

"To live to one hundred and twelve (although how you're to manage that when you've yet to pass the age of twenty, I don't know). To have a large number of grandchildren. To finally peel your eyes off that sappy redhead and find a quality woman to settle down with – some Granger girl, I believe – and most importantly, to ensure that Tom Riddle meets his very timely death. On time. _Unlike you_," she hissed. Harry ignored the dig, as he was trying to wrap his mind around her revelations.

**Hermione**. Yes, unlike Ron, he had noticed that their best friend was a girl before - it had been difficult not to, when sharing a tent with her - but it hadn't occurred to him to _date_ her. Or marry her, as that woman seemed to be insisting he should. She wasn't Ginny, at any rate.

"Do I have a choice in this?" he asked, with a passable imitation of her acerbic tone. Her lips curled ever so slightly in recognition of it.

"Mr Potter, it's Destiny. Of course you don't. The manner of your arrival at it is, of course, up to you." Her eyes gleamed. "For a young man who's just been told of his soul mate, you don't seem to be thrilled."

"A bloke likes to have the choice, you know?" he muttered darkly.

"Don't mumble. And I don't think it will be a hardship," she replied. "But you need not return and – ah, snog her face off. As she appears to harbour a crush for your friend Ronald Weasley, I wouldn't think it advisable."

Harry's eyes flashed. He hadn't missed the heavy way in which she had handled the word 'friend'. "Don't talk about Ron like that – he's been with me through thick and thin!"

The woman stilled, but her mobile expression was distinctly annoyed. "He has frequently allowed his jealousy to get the better of him, Mr Potter, and left you when you needed him most this year. He has never put you first, is jealous of an inheritance that you could not possibly avoid (little though it is) – and you have remained in those disgusting rags because of it, don't think I'm not aware."

He opened his mouth to deliver an angry retort, and then stopped, his frown puzzled. "I'm not rich?" It had been a fact that was secure and known, although the money didn't matter to him. After all, his trust vault was full of galleons.

"Your trust vault would have barely supported you for the next two years." She paused. "Surely you noticed how your vault was dwindling in resources last time you visited, or were you too distracted by how _shiny _it was? Have you never even _thought_ to ask for a statement of your assets? Looked at your financial resources? Taken responsibility for yourself?"

Harry's temper flared.

"I've hardly had the time to simply stroll into Gringotts and do _any _of that! Not that they'd let me seeing as I've _stolen _from them! And take responsibility for myself? I've done nothing else my entire life! No adult has _ever _looked out for me!"

His breath came in ragged, harsh pants, and the injustice of it suddenly forced tears of frustration to sting his eyes. He blinked them back, taking refuge in a heavy black scowl instead.

"I know." Her words were ground out, and the palpable fury on her face was carved deeply in the lines around her mouth. She muttered something under her breath, which sounded rude, although Harry sensed her words - _whichever _language they were uttered in - were not aimed at him. She took a deep breath, and straightened. The words were softer this time. "I know, Harry Potter. Many have failed you."

She winced, and reluctantly said, "I, too, have failed you."

"But you are more than the sum of your past - more than the oafs who neglected you when they were supposed to be raising you. More than the headmaster who coaxes each and every move from you with the expert touch of a master. And more than the future you have chosen for yourself without ever entertaining another."

She sounded disappointed, and though he tried vainly to decide he didn't give a flying monkey's what she thought, he knew he did. The woman's face flickered to a more impassive cast, and she sniffed.

"If truth be told, you are mimicking Ronald Weasley rather excellently at present. He cannot think things through logically either." She tapped her fingers impatiently. "My advice is to abandon the ginger. And to do significantly better from now on."

"I haven't been allowed to remember your gems of wisdom in the past," Harry snarled. "It hasn't been on purpose!" She had begun to pace, but stopped to regard him with a pleased gleam in her eye.

"Precisely. I believe that to be the crux of the matter, Mr Potter." The woman grasped a muggle fountain pen in those long, pale fingers and tapped the air in front of her. A scroll carved itself out of seemingly nowhere, and obligingly floated to the stone desk. She smiled, albeit sardonically. "This is not strictly allowed, so read this, and then sign it." Harry regarded her suspiciously.

"What is it?"

"For Merlin's sake, Potter!" She recovered herself. "It's a contract. Read it, don't gape at it." Harry scowled, but gingerly took it in his hands. His eyes ran over the elegant script, so unlike his own, and the furrow between his eyebrows lessened slightly as he got further down the page.

"I can keep my memories?" He didn't bother looking up when she delivered a crisp, sarcastic '_Indeed_'. He continued reading. And finally, he signed his name on it, gasping as the words 'Harry James Potter' carved themselves into the back of his hand. He scowled at the innocent-looking fountain pen, and then transferred his gaze to words on his skin. They gleamed, bloody, for a moment, and then disappeared as the parchment removed itself from the space in front of him with a smug crack.

"I have a few stipulations, of course."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course," he echoed flatly.

"I am going to deposit you at the beginning of the Yule holidays in your fourth year. You will pack your belongings and return to the Dursleys."

_Go through the tournament again? _"Like hell I will." But then - _Cedric _-_  
><em>

She ignored him as though he hadn't spoken. "I also have a gift for you."

His eyes brightened. Some sort of magical weapon? Magic-resistant clothing? An unbeatable wand? A cloak that -

"No, Mr Potter," she interrupted, almost boredly. "You will most likely be disappointed; this gift is no flashy gizmo to be waved around or added to a collection." She paused. "I'm going to give you a dash of maturity."

"Excuse me?" Harry's voice echoed his disbelief. She said a gift, right?

"I am giving you the ability to think before you jump feet first into whichever mad scheme you happen to cook up first. You should be delighted." There was a curve to her lips, though, which showed her amusement. When he said nothing, she continued. "You are wondering why it cannot be any of those items?"

Harry nodded, still irritated.

"I have reviewed the possibilities. Giving you an item of that kind would encourage you to become dependent on it, instead of getting your scrawny arse in gear and gaining power through your own efforts." She pursed her lips. "The problem, Mr Potter, is that you are lazy, and as you are by no means deficient in intelligence, you have no excuse."

Harry was fairly simmering by this stage. "I haven't exactly had time to concentrate on schoolwork!" he snapped, green eyes glittering.

"The likelihood is that your remaining years at Hogwarts will be even more stressful than than those previous. You cannot imagine that you'll get a job after all this is over without some sort of qualification, do you?"

"Who says this will ever be over?" he groused, half-serious. The woman stiffened, and rounded on him.

"The outcome of this is that you will either be dead, or alive, and it will occur in the next eighteen months, Potter! And if you die this time, you will remain dead. There will be no more chances, no more opportunities to correct your terrible timing. The wizarding world will cease to fight without you as their poster boy. You are key to this battle, prophecy or not."

He found himself speechless at that.

She tapped the air again, and produced a List. "I have two pieces of advice for you." Harry glanced at it, but couldn't stop himself from retorting.

"Only three?"

_Alter that monkey scrawl you call a script and learn to write properly with a quill._ He rolled his eyes. How very... typical.

"Study basic Goblin etiquette. When you are able to write a decent letter, send to Gringotts and request a meeting to discuss your inheritance. Find another means to send it, not your owl."

"So it can't be traced?" he mused out loud. "Who would be reading my letters?"

"Your Headmaster filters your mail." She frowned suddenly. "Albus Dumbledore has been at war for the Light too long. He has lost sight of what he considers minor details, such as your health and happiness, in his quest for his former protégé's demise. His failure with Riddle has caused him to monitor you even more closely. I suggest that you practice some subtlety." She paused. "Please be careful, Mr Potter. The Headmaster is as dangerous and formidable an adversary as Tom Riddle, and you must not cross him unless necessary."

"How am I supposed to get there – to the bank, I mean?"

"The Knight Bus, of course. You needn't use your wand to summon it." She jerked her head to the last item on the List.

_Apologise to your father._

"What for? And how the hell am I supposed to do that?" His face suddenly glowed as hope lit it. "Can I see them? Are they here?"

"Hush, Mr Potter." Her gaze was not dispassionate. "You cannot see Lily or James Potter. They moved Beyond a long time ago."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I cannot reply at this stage."

"Can't or won't?" he said fiercely. "And why can't I go Beyond, then? Aren't I already dead? Then I could see them, and Sirius, and I wouldn't have to fight anymore -"

"You are no longer dead, as you have already signed the contract." She gave a wicked grin, which subsided as his shoulders slumped. She hesitated, as though for the first time the words did not rise so readily to her lips. "I do not wish for you to fail, Mr Potter." The phrase, although awkward, surprised him in its sincerity.

"What's your name?" he asked, realising that he didn't know. Her lips quirked.

"Persephone. You may know of my husband." He gaped at her, and seemed to notice several things all at once.

Her robes, although woollen, had evidently been made for a queen, for the weave was close and utterly flawless. She was at once magnificent and yet her features escaped him if he turned. There was a mark in the hollow of her slender throat that depicted a silver tree - and her eyes, deep and fathomless, ageless as her face and figure, had seen Death.

"But that would mean -"

"That I'm a goddess? What an astute observation, Mr Potter."

"You're a myth. Isn't Tartarus supposed to be dark with hellfire and three-headed dogs?"

"That pit is reserved for the souls of the damned, and irritating though you are, you are not quite that. We have moved with the times, Mr Potter." She cast a tempus, and seemed to understand the figures that shimmered onto the air, although they were unlike any that Harry had ever seen. "Time for your return to the land of the living."

She moved to the centre of the room and swiftly knelt, the fingers not grasping his Key seeming to try and find purchase on something. A moment later, she tugged sharply upwards, and the air _tore_. The Goddess continued to sketch the outline of a door until she was holding a sheet of reality in her hand - and this she crumpled and threw into the shadows. A moment later, her mouth curved into something approaching a smile, evidently amused that he felt this careless disposal of reality was _irreverent_.

A Door had appeared. She inserted the Key, and gracefully turned it in the lock. He couldn't have said what colour the Door was - whether it was pale or dark, wooden or some time of metal, clear or opaque. Harry glanced at her.

"I'm scared," he said, with brutal honesty. The Goddess turned to him, and suddenly there was very real emotion in her gaze.

"As am I, Harry Potter." Her arms suddenly caught him in an iron embrace, and burning lips branded his temple. "Be safe, _o gios mou_."

Before he could ask what she meant, she had hurled him through the door.

_Oblivion._

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><p><strong>A Note from the Author<strong>

You could well be stifling a sigh of frustration at this point. To be honest, I'm not surprised - it is, after all, a well-worn thread. I hope, however, that there is something that makes you want to return. If you could leave a review with a comment on your favourite line, a guess as to any of the hints I've dropped, or things you'd like to see improve, I'd appreciate it.

Cassop


	2. I have a Speech of Fire

Harry was fighting hard not to vomit.

As he stood in the inheritance chamber, staring at the gushing stump of his ring finger and the innocent-looking ring that had severed it, his first thought was how noisy blood was. It gurgled and splashed against the stone floor.

And his second was to wonder how the hell it had gone so wrong _already_.

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><p><em>- Six hours earlier, or three years later, depending on your point of view -<em>

This was wrong, all wrong.

Dying hadn't hurt that much, not really. He supposed the tremors in his muscles had carried over from the cruciatus, but it... well, it surprised him, frankly. Surely his physical body didn't accompany him? Why was his eyesight still blurry, his nostrils filled with the rank smell of his own sweat and fear?

And he had expected a sort of waiting room. Perhaps a queue of people, waiting to be told where to go and what to do. Not this.

Not a glade, full of pools that sank deep and clear and endless down into the bowels of the earth. The silence was palpable. He breathed out. He couldn't hear the shaky exhale as his lungs emptied.

He bent down, still trembling, and pressed his hand against the cool grass. Moved his fingers through the thick thatch of green. No sound.

No breeze, no birds. It was as though this place swallowed up sound, surrounded and smothered movement and forced it into stillness.

It scared him.

He closed his eyes a moment. That was worse. He couldn't even hear the throb of his own blood between his ears. A moment later and he was fumbling frantically for the side of his neck, seeking out the pulse of life beneath his fingertips.

_There. _So, he was still here. He could still _feel._

He took in one more breath, and firmed himself. _Good._

He was still in his clothes from the final battle. He was still dirty and sore and sweaty. His muscles ached. His breath was sour. He had been on the run for so long he had forgotten how tempting water could be.

And it was tempting. It was so clear. He could just step into that clean crisp water, duck under it and sluice the water over his tired body until the dirt floated away.

He could, so he did. He began to peel the tattered rags from his body. He was uncaring of where blood had dried them stiffly to his body, where his sharp movements caused wounds to bleed freely again. He winced, but his movements grew no less frantic.

And when he was standing naked, he sat on the grassy bank. There would be no sandy bottom to step onto. These pools were endless. But he couldn't resist. The pull was deep within him now, calling to him of freshness, cleansing, of newness and refreshment.

_Come, wash away the filth of battle, _the pools sang, and he found himself nodding as he slipped into the cold bite of the waters, careful to keep a hold of the bank with one hand.

It forced him to gasp, and all of a sudden he found he could hear, that his frantic, shallow breaths sounded noisily into the air, that the liquid splash as his arms flailed and legs shot out was real and beautiful and _loud._

He laughed, and it sang out like a clarion into the glade, announcing his joy. He used his free hand to rub at his tired body, to scrub at the layers of dirt. It was limiting, only using one hand. The other one anchoring him to the bank slipped - only for a moment - but it was long enough for the pull to become _downwards,_

_and suddenly the pull was not a call but a demand_

_a force that was pulling him through the water as though he was being sucked down_

and he was going down

and down

and his breath was pushing out and out until there was nothing left in his lungs.

And in a final frantic sob he breathed water in. It hurt. His lungs screamed.

And then **Persephone**  
>and his reality crumbling<br>_and the fact he'd died six times before. _

_Oh god. He was going to marry his best friend._

* * *

><p>Harry woke up.<p>

Or rather, consciousness announced itself with all the subtlety of a train wreck. His body jerked upright, smacking into the rather solid body of one Neville Longbottom, who had been attempting to wake him up. His roommate flailed backwards, cursing and holding his bloody nose.

_"Harry!" _He blinked, and then scrabbled for his glasses, jamming them onto his face awkwardly and painfully in his hurry to get a good look at a friend who wasn't battle-hardened and by the squeak he'd just made, not quite done with puberty either.

Neville stopped scrabbling around for his handkerchief long enough to eye Harry suspiciously and ask, "Why are you looking ab me like dat?" His words were muffled and still reproachful. His face was still round, his hair still cut in the stiff style his grandmother favoured and which he had confided he'd always detested - in about two, three years' time.

_I'm really back. _And then reality reasserted itself. His roommate was still trying, rather unsuccessfully, to stem the flow of blood gushing from his face, and he, Harry, was sitting there like an _idiot_ not helping him.

He bolted from the bed and rushed to his friend's side, fingers gently coaxing his chin upwards. "Here Nev, keep pressure on it. Merlin, I'm so sorry!"

"_Nasum emendo_," he breathed, feeling the magic rush like liquid fire into the broken cartilage and hearing the shattered nose become whole again with a resounding click. He winced at the sound; he should have cast a numbing charm first. He murmured an apology and followed up with a gentle cleaning charm. The blood siphoned from his friend's face and disappeared, leaving only a bloody rag hanging in Neville's suddenly limp fingers.

And then silence was suddenly stretching between them, as Harry realised that his apprenticeship-level knowledge of a healing charm was rather out of character for someone who hadn't yet been forced to learn it by the necessity and ugliness of war.

He looked away. "Hermione?" he offered weakly, eyes flickering back to Neville's face in time to notice the unimpressed expression that settled mulishly on the heir's features, but then smoothed. (How had he never noticed Neville could do that before?)

"Right," Neville said agreeably. "Hermione." He got up, and Harry realised for the first time that their room was in uproar, with trunks flung open and items chaotically flung about. "I just came to tell you that we're all leaving after breakfast – the ones going home – and since you're not on the Christmas list" – _like you usually are_, he didn't say – "you should probably pack and get some food before you get left behind." And then he left.

Harry frowned. He had definitely stayed at Hogwarts in fourth year. He'd been desperately trying to find out what clue his screaming golden egg held, and also terrified as he still had no idea how he would entertain Parvati at the Ball, and angsting over the fact Cho Chang hadn't said yes.

Thank Merlin he was over her.

_Focus, Potter! _he demanded mentally. He could probably assume that the removal of his name from the Christmas list of those staying at Hogwarts wasn't outside of a deity's influence, so it appeared he had some packing to do.

He summoned his belongings from around the dorm with a flick of his wand, a look of distaste at the places in which they had apparently ended up. How had he ever lived like this? They had hardly been anal about tidiness by the end of their sixth year, but they'd at least stopped storing clothes on the floor.

Come to think of it, Neville had always been comparatively careful with his own belongings. His area was merely encroached on by their things, but he'd never mentioned it.

Harry emptied his trunk, cast a quick and brutal _scourgify_ on its interior, and then began piling his school books on its solid base. Sweets, pasties – any extra food – went in also, with a couple of preservation charms learned on the run with Hermione. They'd never known when they'd next have food, so each scrap had been bewitched to last as long as possible.

His clothes – if they could be called that – were folded and placed on top. There. Done! He cast a quick tempus and whistled at the time it displayed, shortcutting his usual regime with a few hygiene charms and wrestling into his uniform before hurtling out of the door and down to the kitchens.

Pasties and chocolate frogs weren't going to last him long. He knew he had to be back in time for Christmas Eve for the Yule Ball, but that was still almost two weeks from now, and the Dursleys were hardly generous with food. He tickled the pear with a fond feeling, and tried to explain himself as quickly and clearly as he could to the veritable wave of creatures who came to his aid.

"I'm aware you're serving breakfast – and I'm sorry for the late notice – but is there any way I could take a hamper of food home with me? I'm not sure when I'll next get to eat." Though they tutted and took him to task as a growing boy who couldn't wait for his next meal (as he'd hoped), the hamper they provided in mere minutes surpassed his every expectation. It groaned at the seams, but turned out to be feather-light as they pressed it into his arms.

Harry's gratitude was warm and amazed, and the blushing elves brushed his comments off and ushered him from the kitchen, squeaking that 'Naughty Master Potter' would be late if he wasn't careful. He grinned at them as he left, and stashed his provisions in his trunk before going into the Great Hall for breakfast.

He slid into place next to Neville at the Gryffindor table. "I'm so sorry, Nev," he said sheepishly, still embarrassed at having managed to injure someone less than thirty seconds into his new life.

"Sorry for what, Harry?" Ron asked around a mouthful of breakfast. Harry blinked in surprise at Neville; he clearly hadn't told anyone of his ease with healing spells. Another look at the other Gryffindor saw him studiously attending to his meal, with possibly more concentration than a bowl of porridge required.

"I snapped at him for waking me up," he improvised, and then frowned, as if annoyed with himself. "I can be a real bear in the mornings."

"I'd never noticed that before, Harry," a new voice supplied curiously, and he didn't even have to pause in serving himself bacon and toast to know who it belonged to immediately.

"But you-" he began, before realising that _this _Hermione had never spent months in a tent with him, and was eyeing him with an odd look – "have never had the pleasure of waking me up," he finished, somewhat lamely. She sniffed, evidently aware that hadn't been his intended sentence, but let it stand.

"And I never will, if that's how you greet someone who does," she countered, and shot him a grin. He found himself grinning back. He'd missed this.

"Still not planning to tell us who you're going to the Ball with, Hermione?" he asked suddenly, and even before her face darkened realised it had been the wrong question to ask. Stupid. Clearly maturity didn't come with being able to talk to girls.

He reached across and squeezed her hand, mouthing 'Sorry'. "Not my place to ask," he muttered. "We'll see on the night." He tried for a tentative smile. "At least tell us he's going to treat you like a princess?"

Now _that _was apparently the right thing to say. Perhaps someone did take over when he screwed up. Her face, which had been flushed with mounting frustration at an argument they'd been having for days, suddenly flushed rosy for a different reason. "I think he will," she replied softly. Still red, she continued, "thanks."

He returned his attention to his breakfast, but not before noticing that Neville had shot him another assessing look, and Ron a gaping one.

"Nice one, Harry," he said appreciatively, "managing to avert the storm. Although I _still _think she should tell us. We are your friends, after all," he scowled, the tips of his ears acquiring a rather pink tinge. Harry kicked him.

"And _that,_" he hissed, "is the way to wake it up again." He glanced ruefully at his fuming best friends. "Try not to kill each other while I'm away, won't you?" Hermione's eyes found his immediately.

"Away? Where? I thought you were staying for the holidays!"

"Yeah, you always stay here! Why are you leaving, Harry?" Ron asked, dumbstruck. _Crap. _He hadn't actually thought up an excuse yet. _Not that I've had the time yet, Persephone._

"I just - needed some space, you know? The tournament's pretty difficult to get away from, and I guess I just wanted to distance myself a bit." He breathed a little slower as Ron shrugged his acceptance, though Hermione kept her burning eyes on him. "I'm serious, 'Mione," he said softly.

Her gaze softened only slightly, but she nodded. "Be careful, please," she muttered, and bit angrily at a piece of toast. A shadow fell across him, and he could have groaned as Professor McGonagall's thick brogue met his ears.

"You're not staying, Mr Potter?" He bit back his first retort, which was to ask whose business it was, remembering that not only was it a certain excuse for detention, but that he actually _liked _his transfiguration professor.

"No, Professor," he replied.

"And what about the Yule Ball? You know it's compulsory, don't you?"

"I'll be back in time for it, really Professor."

"Oh? And how were you planning to manage this miraculous return?"

He cursed silently, once more regretting the lack of time he'd had this morning.

"Oh, didn't you know, Professor? He's coming home with me."

Well, screw Fate. Apparently Neville Longbottom didn't fancy following it.

* * *

><p><em>Next chapter is already written, if anyone is interested in a story that's been left to rot for a good six months. I'm so sorry! Life got in the way - and there's no point really hashing that out on a fanfiction website. If you would like more though, feel free to leave a comment. I'm looking at all of my stories with fresh eyes. Now that I'm on sabbatical for my health, I have some more time. :)<em>

I love this story, and where it's going to go. Hope you will too.

Your scatty and rather undeserving

Cassop


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